Washington, Dec 9 (Inditop.com) Any parent knows that sometimes maintaining your cool with misbehaving children is a challenge. A new study by psychologists suggests that parents with poorer working memory skills are less likely to control their emotions with children.
“Angry, oppositional behaviour in children is aversive and challenging to parents,” said Kirby Deater-Deckard, professor of psychology in Virginia Tech College of Science.
Deater-Deckard along with colleagues at Ohio State and Case Western Reserve universities observed mothers and their children while they completed two frustrating tasks requiring cooperation.
“A parent must appraise the situation and respond in a way that promotes regulation of her or his own negative emotions and thoughts as well as those of the child.”
Deater-Deckard found that reactive negativity was evident only among mothers with poorer working memory.
This cognitive skill plays a central role in the regulation of thoughts and emotions via a cognitive function known as reappraisal, said an Ohio release.
By reinterpreting the event or the situation such as a child’s oppositional behaviour, the parent is better able to understand the cause and thereby regulate his or her emotional response.
“Chronic parental reactive negativity is one of the most consistent factors leading to child abuse and may reinforce adverse behaviour in children,” Deater-Deckard said. He added that working memory training can be highly effective.
Results of the study will appear in the January issue of Psychological Science.
